Feedback for January 2004

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Comment:

In the
November feedback, Jeff Jimison writes wondering if the
diffuculty of human childbirth is a result of God's
punishment of mankind.

Roaming through Barnes & Noble booksellers today, I
came across the book "Mutants", by Armand Leroi, and I
jotted down some quick notes on something that I found
interesting. In the book, Leroi writes the the following
about the spotted hyena & their birthing process:

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Response:

Hi there.
Thanks for the giggle. The page you linked is a joke. It
does serve to point out how hard it is to satirize
creationists as they are their own self-parody.

One clue is the "Gould recanting" which is a clear
reference to the creationist's old fraud of Darwin
"recanting evolution" on his deathbed. The latter is known
as the "Lady Hope Story" as is debunked so often that even
the arch-creationists at the Answers in Genesis Ministry
have acknowledged that it should be dropped from the
creationist screed.

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Comment:

I wish agree
your webside. I'm interested in origins of life with
ecology maths over a molecular population,further
Oparín's book. I'm interested too in hypercicles of
Eigen and studies on evolution in nucleotides and theories
on origin of nucleotides code.(Excuse my bad american,from
Barcelona)

I read the
articals with great iterest and i commened all the hard
work put into them. However, much of the importand
information i have seen is misconstrued. and it is not for
the writers sake that i write this but rater for the sake
of those who read these articls and are mislead. There is
to ush information to deal with and to argue over so i have
chosen one witch is very controversial and has not been
explained fully. with evolution there is the idea of a
small organism splitting once, twice and many times to for
different species this fact i will accept but there should
be evidence of this. Lets fous on one animal say an
elephant. This animal must have went through millions and
millions of years of evolution to get where it is today. we
should be able to see fossil reacords of this animal at
three feet than four five six and so on to where it is
today. Those fossils dont eist. I ask why? And gaps in
fossil records does not hold up im asking for recent fossil
acounts. Why can scientists give me fossil acounts of
dinosaurs which live over 65 million years ago but not
elephants which live today. You can skip around the issue
with gaps and other argument but altimately those gaps are
here because they dont exsist evolution is untrue only
creation holds up

Now, there were indeed some small elephants, and I am
sure it will be a total mystery to our anonymous friend
that some of the smaller animals were in fact among the
later members of the group. There are but three surviving
members, but a vast array of sizes and shapes of elephants
are known to paleontology.

From:

Wesley R. Elsberry

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Response:

In addition, I'll challenge the reader to produce a
collection number for any fossil passenger pigeon. These
birds were present in such enormous numbers that their
migrations were reported to darken the sky. Yet not one
passenger pigeon fossil is known. These animals certainly
fit the "recent" category, and nobody is saying that "gaps"
explain this lack. The answer to why our museums are not
full of passenger pigeon fossils, and a great many other
species, lies instead in the realm of taphonomy.

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Comment:

In the
November feedback on TalkOrigins, there is reference to the
definition of evolution according to Webster’s
Dictionary. It has been my understanding that the word
“Webster’s” is in the public domain,
rather than being copyrighted. Anyone can make a dictionary
and call it a Webster’s. I read this many years ago,
I believe in Tom Burnam’s “Dictionary of
Misinformation”, but don’t know of other
sources. I wasn’t able to find anything about it with
a Web search, but I do note that there are many
Webster’s Dictionaries (Merriam-Webster’s,
Random House Webster’s, HarperCollins
Webster’s, and so forth), so it seems likely to be
true.

(sending this to TalkOrigins, and cc’ing to Jeff
Schneider and John Wilkins)

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Comment:

Its January
now, and another Mars Rover has landed and will be
collecting samples, exploring, etc. Being an avid
Evolutionist, and more recently an anti-creationist due to
a brainwashed ex-girlfriend, I "pray" that evidence of life
is discovered on Mars. This discovery would prove life came
to earth via Meteorite and NOT the working of some booming
voice in the sky. No other explanation, or clever wording
by the evolutionist could disprove it. Lets all keep our
fingers crossed.... By the way your site is superb, keep up
the excellent work.

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Comment:

GREAT
SITE !!!

I have yet to walk accross a better collection of
scientific facts regarding evolution. This is perhaps the
greatest example of the tremendous power of collective
scientific mind that can defend and propogate its views
providing accurate evidence, comprehendible language. I am
also impressed by your ability to withstand Creationist's
denmagoguery (which in my opinion is their replacement for
knowledge) and beat it with facts. Great job!

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Comment:

Wow! was
cruising around the web looking for info re: nucle-osides,
-tides and -ics, and stumbled onto your your web site.
didnt have time do any perusing but added it to my
favorites for a better look later. when i returned i was
immmediately impressed with the organization of topics and
demeanor of your articles. For years i have been getting
ICR info and my dad was a young earther, so i had some
interest in their outreach but always had some serious
doubts. i even attended a seminar by ICR but never
entertained any of my questions and this is before i saw
the light. my doctoral work was in organic/medicinal
chemistry many years ago, but during a west coast swing in
the early 90's i picked up a tape of a testimony given by
Hugh Ross. Needless to say i was glad to learn that in fact
indeed scriptural fact and scientific fact can, do and
should agree. your articles are terrific with excellent
references, meaning not referring to your own articles
which many do in this debate. keep up the inspired work.
t

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Comment:

It's not
Religion vs. Science it is Religion vs. Religion...I
quote...Religion: A set of beliefs, values, and practices
based on the teachings of a spiritual leader [Charles
Darwin: was a pastor at one time].

Why is it
that evolutionists say that Creation does not implore real
science because it can not be dis/proven, but then go on to
say that it has been disproven through scientific method? I
need some answers. fast. can you help me?

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Response:

The quick
answer is that some creationist claims cannot be proven or
disproven, and other claims have been disproven. In
particular, unprovable claims include:

God created things with the appearance of age. (How
would that be different from them really being old?)

Biological change is bounded within a created kind.
(What's a "kind"?)

Certain things look "intelligently designed". (But we
are further told that we can know nothing about the
designer, including what sorts of things it would
make.)

Claims which have been disproven include:

The earth is less than 10,000 years old.

A global flood occurred within human history.

A dense vapor canopy once greatly prolonged human
lifetimes.

Of course, all of the disproven claims can be moved to the
unknowable category if one resorts to "God did it."
Disproof refers to what the evidence indicates; it does not
apply (indeed, nothing applies) if evidence may be
dismissed out of hand by appeal to magic.

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Comment:

I would just
like to thank you for bringing some sanity to the internet.
I always find time to peruse your site and I always leave
feeling that I've learned something. Thanks again, and good
luck in all that you do.

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Comment:

I am
curious. I have found no theistic evolutionist
interpretations of Genesis.

I am a theistic evolutionist, a high school graduate,
and a devout follower of Christ. I would be interested in
typing out an exegesis of Genesis 1,2, and 3 in
compatability with evolutionary theory, as well as the Big
Bang theory.

Do you have such a page on your site? I have spent much
time on this and really believe that the Holy Bible TEACHES
evolution. I would like to advocate the Old Earth theistic
evolutionist position, in an attempt to reach out to YEC's
parousing the site. I am a former YEC. I would like to show
that it is possible to accept the Bible and evolution.

It has been said here, but I cannot find it
DEMONSTRATED. I would like to offer such a
demonstration.

With your permission, I would like to send a manuscript,
done professionally and with ample sources and citations
from other systematic theologians, and a study in the
Hebrew of Genesis. I feel that once YEC's realize that the
Word of God is telling them HOW He Created, they'll put
their arms down.

Please email me if you are interested and I'll send a
manuscript. It'll take about 2 weeks.

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Comment:

You said the
earth was most likely to be 4.5 billion years old, while
many other Evolutionists say it is 40+ billion years old.
If Evolutionists can't even agree within Evolution how old
the earth is, why should we take your word for it?

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Response:

I for one
would love to hear which "evolutionists" say the earth is
40+ billion years old. I'm not aware of any scientist
anywhere who believes the earth to be that old. I strongly
recommend doing some actual research on the subject before
you make statements like this.

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Response:

We promote
"mainstream science" not because it's "mainstream", but
because there's a good reason why it's mainstream - because
the evidence supports it. Evolution is "mainstream" because
150 years of research in a dozen fields of science all
validate the theory as accurate, because it is the only
theory which has real explanatory power, and because
nothing makes sense in numerous areas of inquiry without
it. If the evidence supported creationism, then we would
advocate that idea. The cardinal rule of science is to go
where the evidence leads.

how long did
it take you to come up with all those names for the
sipposed people who wrote those positive reviews? days?
weeks? how can anyone give you positive reviews but a 10
for failing to set forth evolution objectively? for that, i
give you a 10. there, you now have my positive review.

'''Response:''' # Mims was not fired; he was never hired
in the first place. A private company does not have to have
an excuse for not hiring someone they don't like.

MIMS REPLIES: Jonathan Piel assigned me to take over
"The Amateur Scientist" in a phone call he initiated. He
then flew me to New York to discuss the details. I
cancelled a book assignment and a column to accept the
offer.

# Many evolutionists agree that Piel, the editor of
Scientific American, did not act appropriately. Mims' work
should be judged on its own merits.

MIMS REPLIES: I have received many comments of support
from skeptics and others who happen to differ with my views
on creation/design, but who support my right to have such
views.

# Arguably, Mims would not have been good for the
position. He would not be competent in the field of
biology, and his creationist views could likely deny the
validity of much of astronomy and geology as well. Piel was
reportedly worried mostly about the public relations
problems of involving the magazine with creationism, and
given Mims' subsequent actions, his worries were justified.
Although many people believe Piel made the wrong decision,
his decision was not without merit. Mims was discriminated
against because of his antiscientific bias; he most
certainly was not discriminated against because of his
religion.

MIMS REPLIES: I publish papers on biology and
atmospheric science in peer-reviewed journals. See
www.forrestmims.org for a list. As for religious
discrimination, Piel's statements to me during a telephone
call amounted to religious discrimination. See his comments
in Harpers magazine. Two junior editors asked me about the
Bible and abortion. Two senior editors strongly supported
me.

# Mims himself emerged from the incident looking very
far from virtuous. At least once, he recorded a phone call
with Piel without Piel's knowledge or permission, and when
Mims was not hired, he started an all-out smear campaign
against Piel. Others who have dealt with Mims have said
that they would never consider hiring him for anything
because he was so abrasive and insufferable.

-- Mark Isaak

MIMS REPLIES: I was advised by an attorney friend to
record one conversation to establish the religious
discrimination issue. That one recording captured Piel's
praise of my columns and the essence of the discrimination
issue. HARPER'S magazine published a transcript of part of
this recording. I never conducted "an all-out smear
campaign against" Jonathan Piel or took any legal action
against him. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN warned me not to speak
out. I spoke out anyway. The American Association for the
Advancement of Science, the Texas ACLU and many other
organizations and individuals sent letters to SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN and the media protesting what happened and/or
advocating my religious freedom. I am happy to report that
the magazine has new staff and has since published three of
my letters to the editor and a column based on an
instrument that I designed. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN also
published a news feature about my study of major changes in
the population of airborne bacteria in Brazil during the
1997 burning season. (These changes were highly correlated
with reduced solar UV-B caused by severe smoke pollution.)
I bear no hard feelings toward Jonathan Piel or SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN, and I look forward to submitting more material to
the magazine. Instruments I developed for SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN that were never published led to a Rolex Award
(1993) and a new career doing science and publishing many
scientific papers that might otherwise have never been
written.

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Comment:

FABNAQ
(Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions) I would
like to formally respond to this document. Is there a way
to publish a response? After all, if they are frequently
asked but never answered, a proper response page (from me)
could be "frequently asked and finally answered" (grin) let
me know - jchTexas@yahoo.com by the way - I have a degree
in computer and information sciences, a minor in
mathematics and i've lectured to large and mixed audiences
on this subject. I would like to answer in context of the
questions - whether by science or simply review of the
creation text/narrative

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Comment:

What is the
current state of Abiogenesis research? I was told recently
by a young earth creationist that Abiogenesis research was
dead. Can you identify current research projects or point
me to universities that might have current abiogenesis
research?

Also, I would like to comment that this is a tremendous
site. 5 years ago, I was on the fence as far as TOE was
concerned. This site (the FAQs in particular) pointed out
so many misconceptions that I previously had and and
answered every question I could think of.

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Comment:

Parallels.
From May-Dec. 2003, I frequented the Cryptozoology.com
website, devoted to such fanciful (i.e. nonexistant)
animals as sasquatch, yeti, Loch Ness monster etc. I noted
a subset of "crypto fans" are creationists, usually those
who promote mkele-mbembe, the alledged surviving Congo
sauropod. In contrast, those who believe in unknown
hominids, are usually pro-evolution and cite
paleoanthropology in support of their often dubious claims.
One thing they all have in common with creationists is the
same logical fallacies, even if their content is often
different. I'd cite some interesting examples, but you said
to keep this short.

This is not
circular reasoning - it is abductive inference, to use the
technical terms of the philosophy of science. We know that
we can observe the results of things that happened a short
while ago, because we see them happening and see the
results. We know this for longer and longer periods by
direct inspection, back to the beginning of reliable and
objective records (about 4 centuries).

When we see results of processes before that, and they
are of the same kind as what we have seen since then, we
have good reason to accept that the causal processes are
the same, too. Again, this is not circular reasoning. In
this way we build up a picture of the past that is
coherent, based on presently observable and experimentally
verifiable causes, and on evidence of things past.

Historical knowledge is not ever complete, because
information is lost over time. But we do know that the same
general processes, such as physics, chemistry, astronomy,
geological and biological processes, applied then as they
do now. Were we to abandon that knowledge, we would need to
give up all science, historical or not.

A lecturer of mine used to say, "all knowledge is
historical", because by the time we have observed and
measured some event, it is already in the past. All we are
doing with evolution (or astronomy, geology and so on) is
extrapolating a bit or a lot further.

It seems
like scientists haven't finished debating the theory of
evolution. That alone shows that it has some serious
weaknesses, or at the very least may not yet be complete.
(I'm NOT a creationist.) I am still waiting for someone to
answer some basic questions:

1. What was the first life form (you know, the one that
WAS spontaneously generated)? [What is the simplest
possible life form, and wouldn't that one be a good
candidate?]

2. Why did spontaneous generation stop?

3. Why has unnatural selection been ineffective in
creating a new species?

4. Why do evolutionists so VEHEMENTLY believe in the
ABSENCE of God?

Finally, the evolutionists I respect the most are those
who question their own theories the hardest. That's how
science progresses. I don't hear a lot of "self challenge"
among most evolutionists. I DO hear a lot of irrelevant
criticism of other people (NOT just their ideas, but the
people themselves). Ultimately, this is the least
satisfying aspect of evolution: it CAN'T be questioned! (In
that regard, it's IDENTICAL to fundamental creationism.)
Best wishes to you, evolutionists and creationists
alike.

1. We do not
know, nor are we ever likely to know for sure, what the
simplest life form was. However, we do know a lot more now
about what might have happened, and we will
eventually be able to generate an artificial life form
using prebiotic chemistries.

2. It probably didn't - but anything that is generated
now will be very simple compared to the complex voracious
predators of modern life - any products will be eaten up
before they go much further. We would see that as a form of
chemical process on which modern forms now live.

3. Artificial selection (which remains natural, unless
there's something about human capabilities that became
supernatural when I wasn't looking) has not been able to
create species in things like dogs or sheep because there
is a limited amount of genetic variation in a wild species
that we can play with. However, if we played with it long
enough for novel mutations to arise (and some have, for
example, in Manx cats) which, taken together, would
interfere with interbreeding with the ancestral forms, new
species would therefore arise.

And guess what - it has been done, in the 1960s, with
Drosophila fruit flies. And with plants so many
times one could not list them all - but that is by
hybridisation, which involves rather different
mechanisms.

4. They do not. I know personally and by reputation a
number of Christians who accept the reality of God, and
many like myself who simply do not know one way or the
other. There are also atheists who accept evolution. The
science is basically neutral on the topic, as all science
ought to be.

Evolutionary hypotheses are tested and debated and
scrutinised by evolutionary biologists, and they can be
very harsh on each other - which is how science should
proceed. Evolution itself cannot be questioned any more
than the existence of gravity - it's been seen, tested,
played with and it explains more biology than anything else
remotely can. To abandon it now would be an act of extreme
stupidity or know-nothingness. It cannot be justified for
any scientist. I am unsure why anyone would think this is a
criticism - science learns, and does not throw hard-won
knowledge away because some religious objections arise.

From:

Mike Dunford

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Response:

It's also
worth noting that, although it seems to be a bit
contradictory, active and lively debate is actually a sign
that a theory is alive and healthy. In science, the only
theories which are not still being actively investigated
and debated are those which have failed, and been
abandoned.

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Comment:

I love
reading the TO feedback each month. This is some further
information about the November 2003 feedback, reader Jeff
Jimison said "I have come to the understanding that most
other species' (horses, giraffes, even monkeys!) offspring
simply 'drop' out of mom. No pain or hardly any pain." This
would come as news to veternarians, I think, as there seems
to be a lot of talking about what to do with animals, such
as horses and cows, which are in pain before, during, and
after labor and birth of their offspring. Searching for
some examples online, I even noticed a news story about a
tufted marmoset and the aftermath of a painful
childbirth -- "She rejected him after a particularly
painful birth, but she seems to be getting better now." And
a similar problem with elephants
("Young mother elephants who are giving birth for the first
time and experiencing unfamiliar pain, may hurt their own
calves." Here's a couple of links mentioning
horses and
cows.

As for humans having more pain, that seems likely given
that our infants have relatively large heads, but I see a
couple problems with being absolutely sure of this. One is
how to quantify pain in an animal that can't even describe
what it's feeling -- even doing this with conscious,
articulate people has always been a problem. And nowadayds
we often don't give birth in ways that are similar to other
mammals -- for instance, in cows, it's suggested that
licking the infant, and therefore ingesting some of the
amniotic fluid, reduces pain. Here's the link for that one,
from a study at the University of Geulph, Ontario, Canada:
cow lick. So the basic premise of the writer is flawed
-- non-human animals do experience pain before, during, and
after childbirth. And there's big problems in trying to
determine just how much of a difference there is (if any)
between humans and non-human animals with respect to
childbirth pain. Keep in mind also that until recently, we
didn't really care all that much about pain in other
animals, and we didn't do a lot of study on it. Keep up the
good work.

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Comment:

I really
like the way you introduce the field of evolutionary
biology on your homepage. Do you have any pamphlets
available with the same or similar material on them? I
would like them to display for a "major fair" at my
college. If you do have anything like that available,
please just e-mail me back and I can send you my address
and money if needed. Thank you!

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Comment:

How can you
say that PE is based on proof when the only proof is a lack
of contrary evidence? For PE to be true, one must have
searched every corner of the universe for these fossils,
which you have not.

Interesting. My FAQ on PE does note that even the
original paper expounding the theory of punctuated
equilibria gave positive evidence. Look in the section on
"Common errors in discussion of PE". And one does
not have to have complete knowledge in order to
demonstrate a transitional fossil sequence conforming to
the description of PE. Please read the PE FAQ, or read it
again.

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Comment:

Since apes
have 48 chromosomes and humans have 46, how did the humans
lose those other 2 chromosomes? Mitosis duplicates the
number of Chromosomes, so where along the line did the
humans lose the apes' other 2?

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Response:

Chromosomes can merge (fusion) or split (fission). It
appears that there was a fusion event in the lineage
leading to humans, which means that all of the genetic
information was still there at the time of the change, it
was just packaged a little differently. 48 and 46 are the
diploid, or 2n numbers for chimps and humans, respectively.
We're really talking about a change from 24 paired
chromosomes to 23, which is handily explained by a fusion
event.

There are a number of good introductory books on
genetics available these days. I'd recommend visiting a
library or bookstore near you.

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Comment:

I want to
thank the maintainers of this excellent website for their
hard work and dedication. My father-in-law recommended the
talk.origins website to me, and I was very glad to discover
this associated site. I am preparing to teach a course in
evolution at my church this coming fall (including a bit
about how evolution is no threat to Christianity), and I am
grateful to see all of the excellent resources, citations,
and, especially, Creationist arguments that I can expect to
face while teaching the class. Thanks again!

I must say,
I love this site. I try not to argue with Creationists, but
if I ever need to, I know this site will be an excellent
resource. I visit it every once and a while just to read up
on the facts, and when I meet like-minded people, I usually
share it with them.

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Comment:

I am a
retired community college biology instructor who taught
concepts of evolution along with the other topics covered
in freshman and sophomore level biology courses. My
teaching covered a span of 34 years in the upper midwest. I
feel that I as well as other biology and science teachers
at the junior high level and up have somehow let students
down in not making it crystal clear that evolution came
about through natural selection and not by some
supernatural process. In recent years it seems like the
popular media and movies especially have exposed the public
to so many topics of a paranormal and superstitious nature
that people are believing that this is how the world works.
So, I have to wonder, what happened to the principles of
science that we science teachers were imparting to our
students over the years? Why are so many people in this
country convinced that life forms came about as the
creationists insist or that aliens landed in Roswell, New
Mexico several years ago, or that there is life after death
etc.

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Response:

I enjoyed
teaching at community colleges as well as in graduate
programs, and art colleges. My first teaching assignment
was to middle school (12-14 year olds) science classes.

And after around 30 years of teaching, I have never
stopped marveling at the fact that everyone is born
ignorant of just about every thing. Further, it takes an
active effort from both teachers and students to minimize
that ignorance. That effort an be easily reduced for the
student by rejecting complicated knowledge and utilizing
simple belief systems. "duh, its a mircul," is much easier
than learning physics, chemistry and biology. Basic
laziness is aided and abetted by professional creationist
charlatans promoting falsehoods including that true
believers have much to lose, and little to gain by adopting
a rational perspective.

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Comment:

Re:
"Naturalism: Is it necessary?" by John Wilkins

Wilkins position is essentially one of logical
positivism. He attempts to distinguish philosophical
naturalism from methodological naturalism and explanatory
naturalism. One must be in quite a state of cognitive
dissonance to disbelief philosophical naturalism, and then
turn around and procede on the assumption that it must be
true. Logic demands that either 'A' or 'Non-A'. Wilkin's
rhetoric that one can "accept the methodological assumption
of naturalism in science without invalidating
non-naturalistic ontologies" is nothing more than verbal
legerdemain. It is just this kind of philosophical naivete
that characterizes much of scientific thought in general,
and in the field of evolution specifically. The problem
with evolutionists (and many creationists) is that they
waste time arguing about what counts as 'science' and what
doesn't. Those issues are irrelevant. The real issue is,
"what's real and true?" and "how do you know?" Wilkins'
opinion that "what science delivers is by far the most
successful form of knowledge gathering humans have ever
developed" is exactly that - an opinion. How does he know
that? Has he 'scientifically' verified this by examining
all claims to knowledge ever made and verifying which were
true and which were false? What kind of 'scientific'
experiment can be performed to know what 'truth' is, or if
it even exists? Can 'truth' be observed in a test-tube? How
can one 'scientifically' verify the intentionality of an
idea? Can the correspondence between one's sense perception
and the external world be scientifically tested without
assuming said correspondence a priori? What kind of
scientific experiment justifies the principle of induction
without already assuming it? These are all important
metaphysical questions, none of which science can provide
an answer. What's more, these are issues that are
foundational to the scientific enterprise, for without
things like 'truth' and 'induction' science wouldn't even
be possible. Good scientists can observe regularities, and
they can build radios and rockets based on those
observations. But, when it comes to evolutionists
pontificating on issues of origins, all there is are sloppy
metaphysicians dressed in lab coats.

I fail to
see how anything I wrote could be construed as logical
positivism. For a start, I am more influenced by the later
Wittgestein, himself an opponent of the Vienna Circle, and
by Thomas Kuhn, who is anything but a positivist, logical
or otherwise. Moreover, most often when people are accused
of being logical positivists, it is because the term has
become a byword for bad philosophy (David Hull calls them
"The all-purpose evil demons of modern philosophy"), when
in fact they were very good philosophers and their
arguments took considerable hard work to dismantle. If the
reader has specific criticisms of them or me, it would pay
to hear them in detail on the Usenet newsgroup talk.origins.

The term I use is "metaphysical naturalism" -
"philosophical" is Johnson's term, and it is ambiguous. You
trade on that ambiguity here. I do not assert that
metaphysical naturalism is known to be true. That is not
disbelief; it is reserving judgement on a matter than is
not (as yet, if ever) decideable. And I do not then "turn
around on the assumption it must be true". The reader has
failed to appreciate that method and metaphysics are
distinct. One can, in fact I think has no alternative, use
methodological naturalism to learn about the world. But
this is not to proceed on the grounds of
metaphysical naturalism of any kind. Indeed, if one
is a thoroughgoing theist, as a scientist one still has to
proceed using method that is naturalistic in science (and
in a great deal of ordinary life as well).

You say the issue is twofold: what is real and true? and
How do we know? I agree. Reality and truth are ontological
and metaphysical questions. Knowledge is an epistemological
question. One knows what one knows through the exercise of
reason and evidence, and nothing else in science.
Intuitions, internal revelations, and mystical experiences
won't cut it in science, no matter how some might wish that
is did. But for all science knows, they may still be real.
I fail to see why this is a contradiction, or that hard to
understand.

How do I know (I presume non-circularly) that science is
the most successful way of learning about the world? Simply
put - because we can do a lot more and more reliably
through science with the world than we ever could with
anything else. And I would claim that the criteria for
success in this regard are not dependent on science itself.
More people live through disease, we treavel farther and
faster, we can communicate better, we can live longer, we
can build bigger and better (sometimes) and we can explain
more, through science than through astrology, alchemy,
divination, or ritual. Deny it if you please, you won't
convince many.

The rhetorical questions are unanswerable, mainly
because they appear to mean nothing. Is truth to be taken
as correspondence to the physical world of a statement?
Then I answer, yes, you can test the truth of statements.
is it coherence to the larger body of knowledge we have
about the world? Then yes, I can test the truth of a
statement. But to assume that sense perception is in need
of justification, or induction for that matter, before we
can say we know anything leads us to what Hume called
"Pyrrhic Skepticism" - a denial that there even is
knowledge. At that point, I have to say, your use of the
word "knowledge" is faulty. You must be talking about
something else - perhaps mathematical certainty, I don't
know.

The reduction of science to regularities is itself a
standard doctrine of positivism. Do you really want to
adopt that view here?

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Comment:

Regarding
"Cockroaches and Intelligent Design".

I enjoyed your article. My wife summed up the universe
concept concisely one day while watching an show on
"Angels". Multiple people were reporting that they had seen
an angel who had led them to safety. This was forwarded as
proof of angels. My wife, who is significantly more
spiritual than I, commented "So what about all the people
who didn't survive who saw angels leading them to
'safety'."

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Comment:

In a message
of mine that posted in the Feedback for November 2003, I
suggested that the topic of origins cannot be adequately
addressed through the biological sciences alone.
Disciplines such as physics, astronomy and philosophy are
necessary components to a well-rounded understanding of
origins and these are tragically lacking on this web site.
Among other things, consider the frequency of theological
issues which arise when discussing origins. I believe that
Talk Origins does a great injustice to those who may want
to learn what origins actually do tell us (if anything)
about God.

However, my posting received criticisms from Gary Hurd.
Dr. Hurd found it necessary to first point out to me that
the site was never intended to include information from
academic fields outside the scope of bio-evolutionary
science—A moot point since that was exactly the
problem that I was bringing to light.

However, the core of Dr. Hurd’s criticisms were
aimed at the Kalam argument, a philosophical proposition I
referred to which seeks a first cause of the universe from
the implications of the Big Bang. Hurd seemed to shrug off
this argument simply because the most outspoken proponent,
philosopher William Lane Craig, also has a theological
background (Craig has 2 Ph.D.s). The oh-so-witty Hurd even
cleverly refers to the philosopher as “Rev.
Craig.”

However, despite Hurd’s criticisms, the Kalam
argument and philosophical variations of it are widely
discussed and debated by philosophers (and some prominent
astrophysicists as well) in mainstream institutions.
Hurd’s ignorance of this fact is only typical of your
site—Yes, Dr., believe it or not, there are other
meaningful disciplines within academia besides your own
which tackle origins.

Hurd wrote:

“it is highly unlikely that [Craig’s]
supernatural cosmology can sustain the rigorous challenge
of scientific review.”

What “rigorous challenge of scientific
review?” Craig is a philosopher! Only scientific
statements made by philosophers are subject to scientific
review. Would Dr. Hurd also propose a rigorous scientific
review of, say, ethics?

I remain convinced that most of those giving input on
this web site have knowledge limited only to the earth
sciences and couldn’t care less about other
scientific and academic disciplines. As I have previously
pointed out, the most ironic thing about all this is that
the biological sciences tell us little to nothing about
ultimate origins—Big Bang theorists could most claim
that monopoly. In short, the information on this site is
often over-simplistic (particularly when drawing
theological and philosophical conclusions) and only serves
to further confuse the masses.

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Response:

I personally
think the topic of "origins" can quite easily be delt with
without theology. But, if you disagree, I suggest that you
stop whining, write out your case, and submit it for T.O.
consideration. When you propose a theological/philosophical
presentation supposedly predicated on scientific matters,
you invite scientific criteria of review. Astronomy is not
a scientific support for astrology any more than biology,
or cosmology are a scientific basis for supernatural
ideation.

Be prepared for a very severe review under the policies
of TalkOrigins which are clearly posted. I recently
withdrew one of my own articles from T.O. because I didn't
want to make the changes requested by the reviewers. This
is the reality of review.

I appreciate that you found my remarks "oh so witty," as
I tire of dealing with those with too little wit to defend
themselves. So again, my advice to you is send in your
Kalam theory of biology. Otherwise there will be no other
responses made.

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Comment:

I really
enjoyed your article on young earth "proof" of supernova
remnants. As an astronomer I had already figured out most
of the flaws in the young earth argument just after reading
the assumptions. This type of science only appeals to the
scientificly ignorant who refuse to acknowledge that
believing in a literal Bible does NOT mean believing a
literal-King-James-English Bible. I can imagine how those
who believe in appearance of age would explain this: "As we
all know, God created the universe with an appearance of
age so that distant galaxies don't really exist, but are
just photons sent from God. Well, the light from these
distant supernova started reaching our eyes 25 years after
creation and every 25 years past that. However, God did not
make it look like any supernova occured before he created
the earth 6000 years ago (or is it 10000 or 12000)." Their
appearance of age arguments goes against itself here!